Tea and Travels

Sylvia Faddis was born and raised in a bombed out 18th century castle in Western Germany. Her dramatic tales trace her work in film, theatre and fine art in Berlin as a way to escape   dilapidated post-war Germany, and eventually leaving her homeland in 1972—to her global travels and evolution—to become the spiritual woman and homeopathic healer she is today.


We join her remarkable adventures from the Trans Siberian Express through gloomy, impoverished Russia, to a boat from Nachodka to Japan where her insightful and courageous discoveries of Asia began. Read and be entertained by colorful rituals in Indonesia, Philippines, Macao, Hong Kong, a chance meeting with Carlos Santana and Leon Thomas in the midst of a typhoon, and the great spiritual masters of India and Tibet, which informed Sylvia's life.


Image galleries and video clips of rare rituals permit you to meet the diverse people of her numerous adventures. Her constant companion? Teas from every culture.


A childhood dream brought her to the U.S. to meet American Indians and learn about their wisdom and herbal healing. And her love of jazz brought her to meet her first husband, the trumpet player Jon Faddis. (Dizzy Gillespie was the Best Man at their wedding) …and thus for the following decade-and-a-half she joined the global world of jazz, meeting music legends she adored. After a painful divorce Sylvia traveled to Tibet and went through a powerful, enlightening death experience, which led her to the teachings and eventual meeting with H.H. the Dalai Lama and her spiritual teacher H.H. Mindrolling.

Still searching for further fulfillment, Sylvia became a homeopathic healer and is the founder of a foundation that helps the Tibetan people and the promotion of homeopathy.  


In a monastery in southern France, she met her late second husband, a passionate British musician and tantric yogi, David Kirby, who shared her beliefs and joined her path until his untimely passing. 


Integrated with her rich and powerful tales are many cups of tea and healing recipes Sylvia gathered—aromatic, relaxing, bitter, meditative and healing.  


Taste the experiences and enjoy fireworks of teas, including:


● Russian Tsheinik from a growling samovar;
● Green Tea from a 16th century samurai's bowl;
● Fertility Chrysanthemum Tea in a Macao opium den;
● Ayurvedic tea in Kerala;
● The best Chai from tea stalls at train stations in India;
● Future-telling tea from a Bali magician;
● Horse Milk tea in a girr in Mongolia,
● Butter Tea with nomads in Tibet.

 These and more tales will fill you to the brim, through word and image. 
A very moving picture.